1. Field of the Invention
The document relates in general to a method and system for generating quantitative indicators. More particularly the documents relates to a method and system for generating a reliable index of the performance of a market basket of products within specified market segments at real time, using data with missing or unreliable elements.
2. Description of the Prior Art
All industries, in particular, the consumer-oriented and small business oriented technology industry rely heavily on channel resellers rather than direct to end user sales of their products. A typical major original equipment manufacturer of end products may have channel agreements in place with hundreds of channel partners, who then in turn resell to end users or resell to a smaller retailer or to value added reseller who are not large enough to justify a direct contract with the original equipment manufacturer.
Companies therefore require a clearer view of what products are selling through their global, multi-tiered channel, what products remain in channel inventory and how promotions are performing at any given time. Many important decisions around revenue recognition, channel promotions, sales commissioning and manufacturing operations rely on having this clarity.
Currently, manufacturers, researchers and investors have no established credible, timely, and detailed measurement of the health of worldwide electronics reseller channels. Moreover, each user group has a unique set of priorities and interests. Broadly information is required to optimize operations of their channel or that of their clients, to separate the channel trends that are broadly shared across the channel from those that may be indicators of the market's response to their products, and to get an additional proxy for the health of various economies.
Many mature research services exist that are aimed at identifying what is selling within a certain product category, but far less data exists that describes how it is selling within the channel. Typically available research focuses on a narrowly defined product category and provides worldwide (and in limited cases, regional) information about past and future sales of that product through the different channels.
One common approach for measurement of product sales that is used by market research firms is to purchase point of sale data from certain major retailers and distributors, bundle into sales and market share estimates and provide on a subscription basis to interested audiences. However this data represents only a subset of channel outlets and thus is not representative of the channel overall. Since only certain segments of the channel are willing to provide point of sale data for sale, the sample of data cannot be considered representative of the entire channel. As a result of this, trends between channels (e.g., from retail to online) cannot be reliably measured. Moreover, this approach does not allow uniform global coverage.
Another approach used by market research firms that target a specific niche of the technology market is to arrange with each major original equipment manufacturer in that segment to provide confidential sales results and forecasts directly to them. The market research firm then pools inputs from each of the original equipment manufacturers, presents back overall market size and share, and sells the reports back to the contributing original equipment manufacturers and other audiences.
Yet another approach used by market research firms is to conduct surveys of end user/buyers for technology goods, often corporate IT managers. From the survey results about past/future procurement, the research firms extrapolate trends and market growth rates. In addition analysts or investors will often conduct “channel checks” by gathering anecdotal observations about how much is selling, what products are selling best, etc., from contacts inside of one or two resellers or distributors.
These approaches all rely to a greater or lesser extent on self reporting which is at risk of gamesmanship as is the case when original equipment manufacturers are reporting their forecasts or other inaccuracy or embellishment.
In light of these short comings there is a need for a system and method for generating consistently reliable quantitative indicators of the performance of a market basket of products within specified market segments. The system should be such that it has the ability to aggregate multiple data types over different time horizons to create a single index.